Ethiopian history is not three thousand years! (Ephraim Isaac, PhD)

Thank you very much for your important question about the origin and extent of Ethiopian history.

Thank you for inspiring me to write this response.

Prof. Ephraim Isaac

I am prompted to write the response to your question in a public forum. I do so because many of your doubting friends to whom you refer would also be able to see my answers.

You write, “Edeminot, I would like to ask you something if you have [the] time. [Many] people … specially the young…have doubts about our 3000 years history … they ask [for] evidence… Some comment that[one ethnic group] wrote the history like they want… [But] they doubt if our history is even 100 years…. Can you suggest [to] me [a] good book… about Ethiopia?Thank you, Sir”[M.B.]

I have always known young Ethiopians to be bright and inquisitive. Over 600 years ago it was written in Mashafa Berhan (please see my own translation The Book of Light, EJ Brill,1973) from Emperor Zar’aYa’eqob (1434-68) time: “all the peoples of Ethiopia are thirsty for knowledge”. So, I am really not surprised to know that our young continue the ancient tradition of our people to be thirsty for knowledge. I am especially happy that they are inquisitive about our common history. May the Almighty bless them and open the door for them to learn and teach.

Right at the outset, let me tell you that the young people are right to say that we do not have a 3000-year history. We have a 10,000-year common history! Going back to about 10,000 years, all the peoples who inhabit Ethiopia-Eritrea-Horn of Africa today had one single common ancestry.

As you probably know, I am a student of ancient Semitic and Afroasiatic languages. So, my answer here to your question about a common Ethiopian ancestry and heritage is based on a sound ground of the study of Ethiopian languages and conclusions reached by the leading international experts of historical linguistics– scholars from Russia, France, Germany, Israel, Australia, USA, et.al. My own Institute of Semitic Studies publishes the major scholarly publication in this field: Journal of Afroasiatic Languages.)

About 10,000 years ago, one single nation or community of a single linguistic group existed in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Horn of Africa. That nation had one culture and one language. For lack of better terminology most scholars call that language Proto-Afroasiatic (PA.)Most, if not all the languages of Ethiopia today, definitely Ge’ez, Oromifa, Amharic, Tigrigna, Afar, Gurage, Hadiya, Kambaata,Somali, Sidamo, and all the other languages known as Semitic and Cushitic as well as Omotic that including Wolaytta,Hamar, Amuru, Boro, Anfillo,Ari,et.al. are branches of oneancient language spoken by one people.

This is not just my view. As I said above,it is the view of impartial worldwide linguists. They are scholars who study ancient languages and the origin of languages objectively and scientifically. They do deep linguistic research objectively and might have not even visited Ethiopia, like some of the subjective (tiraaznataq) social scientists who think they know everything about our country after a year or two of a visit and study, and whose writings often mislead not only our youth but also our educators.

My sister: the study of languages is not social science speculation. The relationship of most of the languages of Ethiopia today and the other languages of the world is based on serious scientific research — a systematic and in-depth comparative analysis of languages and historical linguistics.

As an example, it is easy to find words in Oromifa that are identical to Hebrew or Ge’ez, two closely related Semitic languages. For instance, Oromifa words like ana (I),ati (you), abba (father),lubbu (soul, heart), kalē (kidney), dīmā (red),garā (abdomen, throat) baē (come out, come), simbro (bird), rēti (goat), sa’a (cattle),jir ā (dwell, live),gibē/goba (hill),‘ol (upward),‘akkam (how? like what?), māl (what, why) etc. are interesting proto-Afroasiatic terms that have cognates found also in Hebrew and other Semitic languages. Certainly such specific words point to a strong relationship of one or two languages. They are important, but not even definitive for our basic conclusion.

What really determine the relationship of languages are not only similarities in core vocabularies, but more importantly grammar. It is not the relation of words but the formal analysis and identification of thestructure (morphology) of the languages. In this regard, almost all Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Horn of Africa languages of today originate from one language, PA. We can conclude that the Ethiopian speakers of these languages today descend from one primordial family.

Unfortunately, not on account of their own fault, our young people are not up to date on the study of ancient languages and ancient world history, particularly their own. On the contrary, some half-baked foreign experts of Ethiopia and political philosophy condition them. I elaborate these problems in the following three points: a) reading of available social science writings that focus on our differences instead of on our similarities and common heritage; b)the recent powerful worldwide political philosophies that questioned the validity of our past history and cultures and influenced the world view of the my generation of Ethiopians; and c) the deficiency of our modern educational system going back to the last century.

First the question the youth raise about the origin of our Ethiopian history or the assumption they make about its chronological extent is distorted unfortunately by reading the books of some modern half-baked foreign academic “experts” of Ethiopia,anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists. Unquestioning or trusting Ethiopian students and teachers have transmitted the writings and thoughts of these mostly foreign scholars to our generation of Ethiopians. Many of these fellow Ethiopians, close friends of mine included, are educators in our schools and professors in our universities and leaders in our institutions.

Social scientists make legitimate contribution in their respective fields. However, most of them do not study ancient languages and literatures. So, they often rush into historical, anthropological, and sociological judgments. Their conclusions are based on “field research” or translated documents, conclusions “lost in translation”.

Worse still, anthropologists and social scientists, even some historians, focus on what superficially differentiates Ethiopian ethnic/linguistic groups, not on what fundamentally unites them, or what they have in common.

1. There are two incidents I still remember vividly. In the mid-60s when I was a student at Harvard, I was hired as an Amharic teacher for the Peace Corps. The first night at the dinner for all the teachers, a sociologist asked me where I was from. Of course “Ethiopia,” I said. “No”, he said,“are you Amhara, Oromo, Gurage, or Tigre?” “I am an Ethiopian,” I repeated. “So what language do you speak?” I responded, “I speak Oromo, Amharic, and Tigrinya, Hebrew, know words in Gurage, and know many other foreign languages.” He went on, “So, what is your religion?” I replied, “I believe in One God”. Finally, he was frustrated with me and walked away. Some might say that his motives were malicious. I cannot judge. He could have just been naively inquisitive.

2. In 1967, when I was back home as Director General of the National Literacy Campaign of Ethiopia, I was invited by the students of the then Haile-Selassie I University to speak at the annual meeting of Union of Ethiopian Students. After my talk I was invited to sit for dinner at the table for the student leaders. Our conversation quickly turned to the question of nationalities. One student asked me whether I had read William Shack’s book, The Gurage. I happened not only to have read the book but I even also knew the author personally, so I told him. He said, “I am a Gurage, and I did not know that we Gurages are an industrial people until I read this book”. It was a pity that he had a foreigner to make him proud of his ancestry, as all Ethiopian should know and be proud of their respective heritage or ancestry. Read More

I thought you might be interested in the release of this new book. It is groundbreaking by all accounts in introducing Ethiopia as the first Christian nation, and elaborates on several other aspects of Ethiopian history, culture and education.

Armenia’s claim on this meaningful title is primarily based upon the celebrated 5th century work of Agathangelos’ The History of the Armenians. In it, he says as an eyewitness that after the Armenian King Trdat III was baptised c. 301/314, he decreed Christianity was the state religion. While one cannot easily deny this baptism, Abyssinian Christianity presents studies revisiting this era in Armenian history.

The Acts of the Apostles describes the baptism of an Ethiopian eunuch shortly after the death of Christ. Eusebius of Caesaria, the first church historian, in his Ecclesiastical History further tells of how the eunuch returned to his land to diffuse the Christian teachings.

Before the Ethiopian king Ezana embraced Christianity for himself and decreed it for his kingdom c. 330, his nation had already constituted a great number of Christians.

Can a nation only become Christian if there is an official decree from its sovereign? If that were the case, then the Kingdom of Edessa would be the 1st Christian state in c. 218. As we see with Abyssinia, and Israel before it, a nation is not restricted to political boundaries.

The best reference I can give to the young inquisitive is the old testament bible which is written about 18,000 years ago. Ethiopians is written in the old testament. There is no even Abssynia in the old testament. As such Ethiopians solid and can not be over-written by fascists. Because you can not rewrite because you did not like a certain king or president. Ethiopians history can not tampered.

In the old testament it is written that today’s Egypt was ruled by Ethiopians. Prophet Jeremia with other Israelites become refugees in ancient Egypt which was on the 7th Century BC. At that time, Jeremia castigating the Israelites to live God’s way and when he was telling them God was angry with what they were doing, the Israelites community in ancient Egypt wanted to kill Prophet Jeremia. They beat him and throw him into a cistern with water and mud and left him to die there. The bible says, an Ethiopian Pharaoh high level officer came and throw a rope to Prophet Jeremia and he pulled him out and he dressed him in new clothe and took him to safety. The name of the Ethioian who did was called AbiMelech.

Secondly, Moses married an Ethiopian Pharaoh officials daughter and Moses took the Israelites to the Sinai Desert. Moses was then married to an Ethiopian young lady called Zipora and her father was called Reul. Moses was then 40 years old. Then Moses with his wife and went to the desert with Isralite community which was 1 million people he was leading to freedom from slavery. They ended up in the desert. Then a desert, they have to face hardship,no water, no food, tired, no clothe, nothing in the desert. The about Million people accused Moses for taking them out from Egypt to die with water thirst, hunger and they wanted to kill him. But God intervened and gave them food, mana and water from the rock. They stayed for 40 years eating mana and got the water they needed. However, Moses had problem of administrating the about 1 million people because he was from the levite tribe and they were accusing him favouring his tribe and there was a lot of conflict and even wanted to kill him. Take not, Moses the president, the prime minister, and the judge and the attorney, the advocate and the magistrate, he was doing everything for 1 million people. But Mr. Reul was called from Egypt to the desert to help. Then Mr. Reul an Ethioian Pharaoh came to the desert and then he was surprised to find Moses doing everything all alone for about 1 million people. Mr. Reul advised him to elect prime Ministers or servants from each 12 tribes to in order to address the tribal conflict which making governing the communities. Then he advised to set up court, judges, magistrates, and attorneys, advocates, many other departments. This is written in the bible. The bible is not written by Menelick or Hailelassie or Meles. In the bible there is no Eritrea or Somalia, Kenya or any other African coutries. The name Africa itself is fake name given by colonialism. The entire Africa was called Ethiopia. Ethiopian history the oldest history on earth based on biblical and current scientific findings and dating. The current Ethiopia is a vestige of the old Ethiopia which a fraction of the old Ethiopia. Even atlantic OCean used to be called Ethiopian oceans. That is why the South African PANAFRICAN PARTY calls AFRICA Ethiopia. They are saying we must change the name from Africa to Ethiopia. I would say the history Ethiopia goes to about 40 000 based on my readings.

Young must research themselves based on science instead of reading books written people do not know Ethiopia. There are people who undermine Ethiopian history because of jealous of our unparalled long history. European New Ethiopia in the 19 century and you can not rely on their writings. We can do any type of dating like carbon dating, amino acid dating, DNA dating, seiomotic dating and other radioactive decay dating. Be proud you have a wonderful history but you can not history unless you use to the history as source of inspiration. We gave the world:
1. Calendar, Ethiopian the first people who used Calende
2. We gave chemistry to the world
3. We gave astronomy
4 We gave to the world engineering, aqudauct long before the Romans
5. We gave the world the first ship , Ethiopians were the first to sail the ocean before anyone, the bible confirms that the bibles say sift sails and fast messengers, fear from far and near, Hellens ( Greeks ) used to fear and worship Ethiopians by they used to call them Gods. I swear people from Greek used to fear and worship Ethiopians.

6. We gave the world silver money, Ethiopia the first people to use silver money.
7. We gave the world addidas
8. We gave the world coffee
9. We showed the world idepedence and
freedom.

Our history can not be contested scietiifically. The people are the same what ever you call them today. Today’s Somalia was under Ethiopia, Kenya , Sudan, Nubia, Egypt, … Ethiopians did not invade anyone but lost their influence little by little because the leaders have been all chipping an selling Ethiopia piece by piece. Time to get together.

Thank you man! We are many who appreciated your historical analysis about Ethiopian history. I know most of the facts you stated here but you presented in a more clear and convincing manner. It doesn’t matter if those minority like Oromo people and this old professor are happy or not about it but history is history!! World know this fact well!!

@meaza
Don’t insult our people and don’t write such derogatory views! We Ethiopians are one and one under any administration; Ethiopia’s unity has not been varied under any government. Keep your ignorant thought to yourself; your stupidity and incitement to hatred has a heavy price. Read more to narrow your knowledge gap which exposed your lowest level of thinking to public; don’t hesitate to discipline yourself from whatsoever family you came from. I don’t need to hear any noise of single bullet in Ethiopian land; I know war practically not by rumor, war exhausted us. You are struggling to fight against peace and unity in insulting Ethiopian people by calling Oromo with obsolete name “Galla”, “minority people”, “confused people”…etc with your archaic and immature mental. Don’t you know how prejudice and racism emerged and eventually lead to genocide in Germany and Rwanda? Do you wish this situation to your country? Practice civility in your interaction.

@Mamush, ewunetim mamush! you gave the right name for your self. I didn’t insult any one …you simply talked a lot. But I have strong hate to those people who live within Ethiopia but do not accept its history and their being Ethiopian. I don’t want any civil war to be occurred in our land but what do you sniff from “Oromo first” people? Anyway, yourself you need maturity in your statements before you insult some one else.

@meaza
This is my real name, trust me. This has no value on our argument. Still you are there; how can you hate people? I may hate you personally, how can I hate your tribe, race, nations etc sorry to say this, what I don’t want to count. One terrorist OLF raised the issue, propagated, we are victimized. The idiot Bedeele beer terrified and canceled the agreement.
“Remember OLF was born on Friday but not last Friday, then whom you gonna blame for the persistent weakness of their struggle. It is only their leadership and supporters like few oromo activists based on fabricated history and the ideology they are generating.
The Oromo people had lost faith on this organization, had it not been for this fact, we wouldn’t have seen Ethiopia in this strength and map in the last two or three decades. You said “galla tenchacha” in your comment somewhere else which offended me.
I hope you will overlook and forgive me for any harsh and infuriating words I used in this comment bearing in mind that I have unwavering stance about my previous comment that was given to the magnitude of your comment.

@Mamush, For some reason I couldn’t write this comment next to your recent conversation at January 4. Hope you understand and get this one. I regret to write those bullshit comments against the general Oromo people, because I could see that it disappoint good people like you. I got your points!! You are right that the extreme OLF, its leaders and blind supporters are trying to threaten Ethiopian unity and always talk about the past and hate other tribes, especially the Amhara. But as to people like to are so innocent and never have to be included in the general umbrella and insulted. I say big sorry for what I commented and that offended you!!. You said that “The Oromo people had lost faith on this organization, had it not been for this fact, we wouldn’t have seen Ethiopia in this strength and map in the last two or three decades”. What do you mean? Does this mean if OLF were strong Oromoya would be separated from Ethiopia and Ethiopian would have had a different shape? I hope not. Anyway, I wish if you tell me as what you mean by this. Except this, I understood all of your points and judge you as good Ethiopian who believes in its history and unity.Cheers

To clear your question, if OLF were fully supported by the great Oromo people, nobody withstand this force.
Except few extremists nobody supports OLF.
If we agreed on this matter let us respect our nations who have lived together for many centuries. Let us not be power monger and hate-monger.
I will never ever write on this website, the awramba editor is not working on corruption and lack of good governance of the ruling party.
Goodbye forever.

You Habasha born out of one who fucked his own mum in 16th century, you say ‘minority’ to Oromo? Oromo is the first son of man_RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I do not fuck yaa. Be sensible. Indeed, how can such a man born like this have human consciousness. Prof Isaac is the only Habasha with humanly mind. The rest, human piss.

My comment is reference to your response ” minority like Oromo people.” Oromo is a majority ethnic group in Ethiopia. This is fact on the ground. Oromos were not a part of Ethiopia until the great Menelik the 2nd invasion of Oromia and south. We amharas and Tigrays are included in history of 10000 or more. I would like to point that we have to stop designating the history of the present Ethiopia from the north prospective. What is the importance of having 30000 years history now. We Ethiopians are the cheapest nation in the world. Our women are servants of Arabs and south Sudanese. Our men are beggars on the street of Yemen . Do you know that our neighbor Kenyans,who have history of less than 100 years how pride they are. They are not dogs of Arab as we ethiopian are. prof Ephrem pump Ethiopians up with false history based on Debteras teret teret. If it makes you happy, I will write a paragraph claiming that a history of 1000000 years(foolish and coward).

Mr. Gebez, if you wanted to refuse or disprove you need to come with evidence or proofs to counter whatever is written. Otherwise, do not come here to here to insult people. Do not think you are hiding behind your pc. Trust me, I can get who you are and where you live. Do not come here again with rubbish attitude to insult people. The next time you, I will track you down and expose you to the public. My real name is Gezaee Hailemichael. I do not hide behind pc to insult people. Ethiopia is eternal and its history is written in our DNA. You can fabricate lies but that will not change anything but it will confuse you more than ever. If you have a case show us. Otherwise, we will not allow to trash our history. Because of low self-esteem you wanted to rewrite other people’s history? why? Come on respect others, no one is going to fold his or her hand while you try to tamper with our history. Our history is printed in OUR DNA. You can not change it by writing fake and based claim.

@Gezaee Haielemichael, I again respect your explanation to this loser. I think all those who are in identity crises should read this. We love and respect our history, we don’t care about those minority and confused people. Cheers!!

this is baseless statement. i don’t from where you brought this history because i read bible both old and new testaments repeatedly and the way it’s mentioned there is different. scholars were calling all east African countries as ETHIOPE means burned face(black face). any ways differentiate absinian country from ethiopia. ethiopia= absinia + southern people which was founded by minilik 2. so we have history of around 100, after minilik. please don’t fabricate history. don’t confuse people. thank you!

What I want to tell you is Ethiopia in the Bible has nothing to do with today’s Ethiopia. This name was given to Ethiopia only in 20th century taking from the Bible. It is like giving your child a name called Daniel from the Bible but Bible’s Daniel history has nothing to do with your son.
Secondly, Hebrew Bible texts use Cush instead of Ethiopia. It is the Greek versions which uses the term Ethiopia and the English translation took that. So, the Bible doesn’t even mention Ethiopia at all, it mentions Cush. It says, “Moses married a cushite woman”. Read the WEB translation and you will find out.

The other list of contributions that Ethiopia made to the world was so funny. But only little kids could beleive that fabrication.

Yeah our common ancestors are one! Good job Ptofessor Ephreim Isaac !Since About Oromo is a hot topic this week, I want to add a little of what I know:the Oromos are one of the original inhabitants of East Africa; from Wollega to Somalia to Afar & beyond to the Land of Saho all are family language, therefore since the oldest inhabitants of east Africa are said to be the Afars, then Afar’s language is closely related to Oromofa , therefore this proof can make Oromos one of the oldest inhabitants of east Africa! Don’t you think so guys? Truth is always truth!

Please, do not write once again in Amharic on the Internet. Amharic is born out of cave monastries in the 1800 by dabtars artificially from other Cushitic languages. Hence it can only describe the worlds of dabtara, beggars, monks, sambatees,vice, evil wishes…all the devilish world view. Please, Habash, sons of dikala, of no human anscestral history…please do not write in beggar language. It is puking!!!!!!!

Great article, great Man!!! May God takes Care of your well being for the sake of mother Ethiopia. We wish you the age of Abrham. I have always thought Ethiopians are same people irrespective of language differences. Se words like ke, che, te etc not known in other languages but clearly practiced in all Ethiopian languages.

Addis boy, you are only exposed yourself how low you are ; you think you are insulting him? but you are not insulting him; you are insulting yourself very well. If you do not agree with him, the civilized way is to put present your self with reasons and evidences to refuge or oppose. Otherwise, jumping to insult people only how low you are yourself. This is the man who has been building among Ethiopians. If it was not for him, Dr. Berhanu and others would have been in prison now. Never mind, this generation of Habesha is lost one. Insult, hate, thieft, immorality, dirty copy,… others have become the culture of this generation.

This is a linguist’s view of history. He is simply saying what we already know about languages, how they are grouped by their forms and Origin. We can not stretch that to mean every thing is one. In this case every African is an Ethiopian. Can we say Every African is Nigerian? We know Enough to say there is nothing new here. If this is just to claim certain history hoping that somehow this will quiet people’s struggle for freedom, we may be making a big mistake.

This post is misleading. The afroasiatic homeland is still being debated to this day.

The most likely location was the red sea region of present day northern eritrea, southeastern egypt, and eastern sudan.

From there it spread into the middle east, back south into the horn, and west into north africa.

So to say that it unifies ethiopia would imply that it also unifies north africa, the horn of africa (including somalia, eritrea, and djibouti) chadic speakers of west africa, and arab speaking middle easterners.

So, yes it fosters unity but it would imply unifying all of north africa, the horn of africa, and arabia into an ‘afroasiatic’ sphere or realm.. Not just ethiopia.

Secondly, more recent historical events, namely semitic incursion into the horn, cushitic expansion from egypt into the horn, and the subsequent amalgamation of these cultures along with indigenous omotic speaking peoples and nilotic speaking peoples (assuming they were around back then) formed/shaped the ethnic landscape present in the horn today.

Ethiopia as we know it was unified after the expansion from the highlands in the late 1800s due to menelik’s conquests and defeat of italians.

Prior to this, there was no ethiopia, only ‘abysinnia’ which lied in the highlands… That portion of modern day ethiopia has history which extends back around 3000 years (at least in terms of the semitic cultural incursion which is now the dominant linguistic and cultural force in mainstream ethiopia).

Sir, you did not read; you need to read; We are telling you the name Ethiopian , in the old testament, and the two countries mentioned in the bible are Egypt and Libya and the rest did not exist. Abssynia is only one time name; its record for short time period. In the bible there is no Abyssinia or amhara or tigrie or oromo or Eritrea or Somalia. It is Ethiopia only. The bible is written around 18 000 years before the birth of Christ and we are now in 2013 which means according to the bible Ethiopia is 20,000 years old using biblically reference only. Using genealogical and chronicle studies done in Egypt shows Ethiopia existed before Egypt and this studies show upto 40,000 before the birth of Christ. This is what my reading shows me. Menelick was a one generation human being; He did not make Ethiopia.

Reading scientific researches , not orally stories written by different story line interests group.

Where is your evidence sir? In the bible the word Ethiopia came later. Even if it is used today, the Greek gave it to anybody who is dark skinned, and South of the Sahara. There is nothing to show it is Today’s Ethiopia. Ethiopia as it was used at the beginning was not a specific territory.It was rather meant to describe certain features of people from certain area that area being anywhere South of the Sahara.

Garo, I read the entire bible , old testament and there is no oromo or amhara or tigrie or Somalia or Kenya or south Africa or Britain or USA, Russia or China or Eritrea. I did not write the bible. The old testament was written around 18 000 years back. I did not write or Menelick did not write or Hailelassie or Yohannes or any king did not write it. It is not written by Ethiopian. In all the bible it is written Ethiopia; There is no other Ethiopia. It is true Ethiopia covered the entire Africa including middle east, even upto India. I have come across Indians who tell me their descendants are Ethiopia. There tribes in India who looks like Ethiopia. Yemenis are Ethiopia, Sudanese Ethiopians. Nubians Ethiopians, the current Egptian Arabs who settled very recently 7 century AD. Ethiopian administered Egypt until 8th century BC. The last Ethiopians king Egypt was Emperor Terhaka who invaded the entire middle with 1 million soldiers but he was defeated by Israel and ancient Egypt failed in the hands of Helens ( Greeks). They invaded Egypt and looted literatures ancient Ethiopian in Egypt and they studied the literatures they looted from our people. Astronomy, geometry and that is how Greek become civilized country. The Greeks even developed their Calendar by reading the literature they stole from Ancient Egypt. They developed a Calendar by copying. Then the Romans conquered Greece and Egypt together. The Roman looted Greek itself and Egypt again. They looted everything from Egypt to Greek. The Roman Emperor forced Greek astronomers to make for him a Calendar based on their Calendar they copied. Then the Greek philosophers were forced to make Calendar for Caesar Julius, dictator Emperor of Rome. Then Julian himself blessed the copy Calendar and gave it his name Julian Calendar. Then Julian Calendar was copied to Gregorian Calendar. Then Arabs started getting power and invaded Greek, Egypt which were under Roman colony. Then the Arabs looted the literatures in Greek and Egypt gain and the literatures developed by Roman based on the previous copies. Then Arabs took everything and they studied based on the looted literatures and developed many things. The Arab expansion is the most recent and the Arab colonizers are still in Egypt, other African countries now. The Islamic calendar was again developed based on the copy from Ethiopia. To be honest, nothing makes me proud than Ethiopian history. You can go right and left, Ethiopia is just amazing. It is written everywhere you can not change it.

Civilization: Ethiopia, of course, Egypt was part of Ethiopia …> Hellenics –> Romans –> Arabs–Europeans. China or Asians have a separate history of their own but Ethiopian were doing business with China, India and Arabs were living in the desert then as Nomads, no house, and they used to take sand shower. They used to wash their body by sand. It is written in the bible Arabs as nomads and Ethiopians fast sailers and ship makers and faster messengers across the sea.The bible described Ethiopian, bronze skinned, brave, tall, beautiful, feared from far and near. The bible actually warns, Ah Ethiopia, becareful. The bible says Ethiopia washed rivers. The bible is not ambiguity about Ethiopia. The people described very well. Do not come to me with a book written in Europe. European themselves did not even know Ethiopia itself leave alone to know Ethiopian history. Scientifically no Ethiopian will denies Ethiopian ancient history but there are those social scientist who do not anything but fabricated stories of their own. Alas, Ethiopian history is unpallalled human history. So far all the facts about Ethiopia are based on studies done in Egyptian ancient tombs. No studies have been much done in Ethiopia. If we do more radioactive decay dating, we will definitely surprise the world. There is a lot of seimoitic , radioactive decay analysis required to unveil more amazing historical facts. For instance Queen Sheba has a huge Aquduact Technology which was before Greek and Romans. That technology has been used by Greek engineers and Romans Engineers. Do not joke with Ethiopia. If God’s home is Ethiopia. Do not listen to the aethiest TPLF leaders who are against Ethiopian history. They are curse to our history. They are not good. Meles Zenawi hated Ethiopian for un-known reasons and he falsely claimed Ethiopia was created by Menelick, a completely fabricated lie.
Read the bible, I can not read for you. If you can prove me wrong, do not shout on me because you have low self-esteem. If you do not have recorded in Ethiopia, it is not my problem. If your ancestors lived long in Ethiopia, they should have history not necessarily written by buried artefact like the one in axum, Lalibela, many African countries have their history written on tombs, burials, and some artefacts which shows their existence in the area. If you claim you are the first Ethiopian? no problem , show your legacy from the old. Do not tell us Mr. X wrote this and that. I have read some book written by Europeans completely ignorant and biased and they do not even know what they are talking about. For instance, South African whites claimed the Lalibela was built them, not by Ethiopian. I swear I read an article in Cape Argue News paper, a Journalist called Tony , a white South African claiming Lalibela was not built by black people but by white South Africa. If we have to accept your claims guys, we need to accept Tony claim. Google Tony South Cape Argue Journalist , the last remaining racist.

It was later that the word Cush was replaced by Ethiopia and I do not think that even matters for our political problems today, because nobody is going to decide what is best for him or her based on our origins some thousand years ago.This is just a side issue to divert attention from what really matters.

THIS EPHRAIM ISAAC GUY WHAT IS HE? IS HE OROMO OR SHEABY? IN HIS INTERVIEWS HE SPEAKS HIGHLY OF ERITREA. IN FACT, SEVERAL TIMES HE TRIED TO COMPARE ERITREA WITH ETHIOPIA, AS ERITREA WAS A NATION OF ITS OWN FROM THE START. ANY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL’S STUDENT KNOWS THAT ERITREA WAS PART OF TIGRAY UNTIL THE ITALIAN TOOK IT FROM ETHIOPIA AND MADE IT THEIR FACTION HOME, ABOUT ONE HINDERED YEARS A GO. DUE TO THE FACT THAT HE FAIL TO MENTION THIS PART OF THE HISTORY ACCURATELY, I FIND HIS EXPERTS IN THIS MATTER QUESTIONABLE.

Ethiopia and Africa are the same. There was also a time when Africa was subdivided into Lower Ethiopia and Upper Ethiopia (you may see this: http://www.afrolehar.com/cultural-space/bahil )
There was also Ethiopian Ocean which was part of Atlantic Ocean. Arabian Land and India too used to be part of Ethiopia. Indian ocean used to be Eritrean Ocean.
The best book you may read as a reference: Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire by Drusilla Dunjee Houston

as prof.Isaac tries to justify nationhood by invoking what he calls ‘historical linguistics’, I am pretty sure he will be able to mislead some fanatical narrow-minded abyssinians like him but not any mainstream broad-minded ethiopians within the present day federal establishment. My advise
to him is to stop preaching like a patriarch and start to become true to historical facts!

This is nothing new. He is a linguist and languages are grouped in some form or fashion and therefore worlds languages are grouped in to less than a dozen groups. That does not mean that we have the same number of countries as the grouping of the language origin. There is no reason to politicize this fact It does not add to the debate. As to Ethiopia being in the bible some forty times, this also is very recently. If I am not mistaken there was no the Word Ethiopia in the original Bible, but People replaced the word Cush with Ethiopia during the emperor’s time.Even if it is in the bible no body is waging religious war. Therefore I do not see the point unless some people making any kind of political issue in to a religious issue just to divert attention from the real problem.

Where was this guy, so-called Professor Ephraim Isaac when his masters, Meles Zenawi and associates reduced Ethiopian history to only 100 years in the first place?

You see, Professor: The damage was done massively in front of your own eyes. If you are a person of such a caliber, i. e., linguistics, a historian, blah, blah, blah, and you believe your input is important to the new generation of Ethiopians, why wait until the father of falsehood, fabrication and distortion (Melese Zenawi) was dead? Why this time?

Honestly, did you write the question yourself on behalf of a young and confused Ethiopian or someone wrote it anonymously as indicated? To me, it sounds a simple effort to buy you lost Ethiopians’ thrust and respect thereby rehabilitate yourself as an irreplaceable intellectual.

Thank you Prof.Ephraim Issac, I am proud of Ethiopia having respective linguistic and cultural heritage and let us not sermonize our own extraordinary supremacy while we have more 80 nations and nationalities.
I hope you will write books which is valuable for this and for the next generation.

Ethiopia is great, it is greater than we want to accept. It seems the modern leaders of Ethiopia don’t want to teach the youngsters about the truth. They rather maliciously suppress some (and they are very few already) of the scribbles related to the ancient great Ethiopia. For example, have you ever read the following poem by the great Tsegaye?
ይድረስ፥ ለኛ
I don’t think many Ethiopians read it. Otherwise, the above article of Prof. Ephrem would have been unnecessary. Check this site: http://www.tsegaye.se/#
Even though, I have some reservation about his sanity, some of the videos of Prof. Muse Tegegne are also good to watch.
Check this site as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATaLucWHjQA

Who is the king of Ethiopia before 100 yers ?
No one tell me if you have..
One thing I now the south people have king
The oromiya to….
Otherwise no one king at that time
Don’t teach people false propaganda
I love my countery from south to nort east to south but I do not like to here fals hestery.

The Chameleon Professor is now resurfacing after a long time of hibernation. A while ago he suffered a huge blow from blistering attacks by many Ethiopians for his art of flip-flopping in politics and his academia.

He worked hand and gloves with the dead tyrant in bashing and trashing our country and history and now he is back to tell us about our history which is 10,000 years. Many of us may not have problem with the figure. We will certainly have a problem with individuals who work against our country and people at one time and then turn around and try to be an authority of our history, culture, language, ethnography etc. This is as disgusting as it can be/go. Who does he think he is? A one-eyed man among blinds?

This “professor” is again up to something. He must be advised or hammered hard until he is silenced for the rest of his life. Telling us that he is a primordial soup of 3 or 4 ethnic groups, master of this number of local and international languages and master of history of Afro-Asiatic peoples and countries has served/done us nothing. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”, as the saying go.

The more we shower him with praises, the more he enjoys the lie in disbelief. Such an act is a total disservice to our people and country. A mountain heap of groundless praises will never amount to a spoonful of genuine service. Give him what he exactly deserves, including the Devil!!!

Thank you dear professor!! His assessment and analysis is a very powerful and authoritative source for the the civilized world as Professor Epherem Isaac is one of the topnotch Harvard professor!
However chauvinist elites may prefer the analysis of some debteras like abba Bahrey and contemporary ‘debteras’, ‘kebero mechis’ and opinions of some village professors . For these village professor and Kebero mechis the opinion of Harvard professor is noting for them however Harvard’s assessment and contribution is very valuable for the whole world.

Why do you guys cut our history short. Ethiopian history is not 100 yrs, not 3000 yrs, not 10 000 yrs. it is 3 million years. Think of Lucy and Selam. Don’t fight over Tigre, amara, Oromo, Kenya etc. even the ferenjis and Asians are from here.

Mekdes, please discipline. We do not tolerate insulting our people. If you need respect, respect others; The debtars has preserved and recorded their history unlike yours. The debtras are now your enemy because they recorded their history and then the yours did not have anything to write. I kindly request you to desist insult people because your low-esteem; You do not recorded history is not the fault of the debtras, it is the fault your forefather. We ask to stop insulting our people. We do not tolerate vilification because of ignorance and inferiority complex and low-esteem. You are against the debtras, you are against everyone. Take note and think about it.

Mekdes, please discipline. We do not tolerate insulting our people. If you need respect, respect others; The debtars has preserved and recorded their history unlike yours. The debtras are now your enemy because they recorded their history and then ours did not have anything to write. I kindly request you to desist from insulting people because of your low-esteem and inferiority complex; it is not the debtras fault you dads did not give the book life. The debtras are civilized and literate , they do not have to speak English. We can not depend on our scholars, but you can depend on European fictious stories. Please respect others whom you do not like for whatever reason. We beg to stop insulting people to satisfy your low self-esteem. You better read and know who you are than attempting to rewrite Ethiopian history. If you knew you are Ethiopian, you would not do that. What is making your like this is confusion and lack of confidence on who you are. Please do not vilify people because you do not like for your own reasons, this is barbaric and primitive attitude. Please be proud who you are wherever you are and whomever you are, but stop trespassing others for whatsoever.

@Gezaee Hailemichael
Mekdes’s is comment is right.
Have you ever heard that the human kind originates from sea fish? This was written by Bahrey, History of Galla, in C.F. Beckingham et al., some records of Ethiopia, 1593 – 1646 (Nendelin, Lichtenstein: Kraus Reprint 1967).
Can you suggest me any scientific evidence for the originality of human kind from sea fish to enforce this debtera’s history book? I don’t want to write other bad words written on this book, I reserved not to offend my Oromo brothers and sisters; though, I am not Oromo, I share the same feelings of my compatriots. Respecting each other, practicing civility in our interaction, tolerances, narrowing our differences …etc are necessary to build the united and peaceful country.
Favorably quoting Atsma Giorgis, Prof.Mesifin Woldemariam, an Ethiopian Geographer, says, “…the Galla movement like a flooding river, as nomads, destructive and purposeless force,….etc) prof. Mesfin Woldemariam, An Introductory Geography of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Berhanena Selam printing press, 1972.
Other historians wrote the movement of Oromo as “disciplined movement.”

Have you heard an African adage that goes like, “A witness of a rat is another rat”? “ያይጥ ምስክሯ ድንቢጥ” fits the translation.

That is exactly what you are. FYI, we do not need a Harvard graduate to answer a simple question on our history unless you are out there to shoot him through the roof with a pile of praises and admiration.

The guy has done nothing significant on Ethiopian history and languages to be labeled historian and/or a linguist. I wish he stays out of the current crisis as he was/is part and parcel of ethnic-related problems in Ethiopia. We have enough of that.

Prof. Isaac is a wolf in sheep’s skin/clothing. Beware of him!!!.

Let see if he responds to individuals who commented on his write up without a pile of praises. Expect, answers will be like, “ለማያውቅሽ ታጠኝ!”

Yes sir, it makes more sense and you spent lot of effort and time to write about it. Especially the way this history of linguistic and ethno factors unite us are profound than the other way around. Personally I can easily speak and relate oromagna, somalagna and afaragna languages, which are cushitic grouping. But I have a question about the history of Ethiopian name, which is Greek origin meaning dark skin . Or anyone from africa. The better known Ethiopian is Abyssinia , which referred to highland regions. And first time I found it while was reading ‘ The Tale of Two Cities’ by Dickens in reference to they way they torture prisons in their captivity.

I did not see any useful comments except Gezaee Hailemichael’s comment. I can see how illiterate they are. Their English is so deplorable or unworthy. All they know is ONE word “insulting” others when they don’t have any thing to say.

Dear Gezaee and Mario,
This is just to note that i had no any intention to insult the people.However again for me i prefer the analysis of Harvard scholar over the assessments of the Debtera’s. I think the majority of the people of the world would share my view.how about you? This has noting to do with insulting the people but it is just the truth!
I didn’t make comparisons between people but I compared the assessments of different scholars. Try to know and read about Harvard scholars and what Harvard professors have been contributing for the last 400 years in making changes to the whole world.

@mekdes
I agree to your opinion; to add some, as an Ethiopian if we need sustainable unity; any obstacle against unity shall be cleared through intellectual discourse in a pragmatic analysis. There some history books that preaches single superiority and treats some nations as aliens in their homeland. The current situation requires opening our eyes and ears to the past history, learning from our past mistakes not to repeat, develop the positive part of our past history, and build the united and peaceful Ethiopia.

From GETACHEW REDA (Editor Ethiopian Semay)
Professor Efrem Issak is a close friend of the Apartheid TPLF and EPLF groups. As he confessed openly on his interview to the Apartheid TPLF media- he knew Melse Zenawi when Meles was the Apartheid guerrilla force leader of the TPLF.

Efrem also had a close relation with the Eritrean EPLF group lead by Isayas Afewerki. Based on this Efrem always confessed, he have a great respect for both Fascist group. It this reason why Efrem called Issayas Afewerki to Princeton University in 2000 to give his side of lies about Ethiopia colonizing Eritrea.

Efrem is not known for any role in student or Diaspora politics either under Haile Selassie or under the Derg, None the less serves as an American agent to track political developments in Ethiopia and the Horn in order undermine and derail Ethiopian nationalist dreams and objectives. Efrem was a leading protagonist in the important 1990 Toronto conference of Ethiopian armed and unarmed Diaspora political and civic association leaders to determine the future of post- Derg Ethiopia.

He also claimed he is a Falasha Jew. Why is he lying? To my knowledge Professor Efrem is half Jew and half Ethiopian. His mother is an Oromo.There is no Oromo known Felasha in our history. There is no also Yemeni Felasha. Felasha are Agewait Ethiopians in the Norther Ethiopia (Gonder, Gojam, Tigray, Wollo, Eritrea – remember there are 9 type of Agewait brunches). So his claim as Felasha Jews is a hoax to make his homework easy for the destabilization of Ethiopia by the Zionists and CIA (as they carry the moder slavery on the Felasha ethnic Ethiopians) by being a very close friend to the Apartheid guerrilla groups TPLF/EPLF/OLF.
So Efrem was at Toronto apparently as a guest of the late Dereje Deressa , leader of the CIA organized and financed Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Alliance (EPDA) -, EPDA (Posidina, California 1982) and his cousin Hanna Deressa , both from Welega. Commodore Tasew Desta, President of EPDA where he represented the nationalist wing , in his book on the CIA entitled የIቲዮጵያ Aንድነት ትዝታና ትግል (Ye Ethiopia Andinet Tezetana Tegel) tells us about the CIA manipulation of the Toronto conference. We know that the CIA has been since 1969 giving arms, money and food to the EPLF and TPLF who were fighting first Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia then against the Derg, not only to break away from Ethiopia but for the total dismemberment of Ethiopia and the total deprivation of its Red Sea coast. Ethiopia has been rendered a land-locked state. Worse still, with EPLF and TPLF in Government Ethiopia has been transformed , certainly with the instrumental collaboration of “Peace Makers” like Efrem, into an American proxy colony deprived of its independence and sovereignty. All these are aspects that have tormented Ethiopian patriots since May 1991.
Remmber, Efrem Yeshak was a guest speaker at the July 1991 Conference in Addis Ababa with the victorious U.S –TPLF-EPLF hand-picked people to consecrate the secession of Eritrea and draw the so called Charter of apartheid tribalization and the dismemberment of Ethiopia . His speech regarding TPLF victory was of great admiration .
The late Professor Aleme Eshete who was my teacher and close friend of mine wrote “Efrem is said to have made a Qene of the leaders of Weyane including “Tamrat Layne” , then Prime Minister, which two words in his name have inspired Efrem to say “you have indeed shown us miracles” These are not academic or literary jokes but hard staff of life and death affecting the totality of Ethiopians which leave no space for money making business under any name. And as we shall see Efrem’s lime-lighted birth association with Welega may suggest OLF push and on his part some kind of unpublicized tolerance if not outright support to the Charter of Bantustanization”.
Thanks Getachew Reda (Editor Ethiopian Semay)

Nobody said Debteras are/like Harvard professors or even remotely close to people of higher educational institutions and hence comparison of the two is totally misplaced.

One thing is clear, though. They are literate and learned individuals in their own capacity. Trashing and bashing them has become part of the norm of the time, including the use of terminologies such as neftegna, colony, identity, ethnicity, habesha, Abyssinians, amharas, chauvinists, Menilik, empire, bandira (sendeq alama) etc., etc., etc., for denigration purpose and to achieve targeted objectives, if you know what I mean.

Prof Ephraim said nothing when Ethiopian history was denigrated, battered, falsified and analyzed in a manner never done/heard. His masters told him Ethiopian history was/is as old as his own age, about 100 years. Did he say or write anything that refutes as a Harvard Professor and an authority on Ethiopian history? Absolutely nothing. On top of this, for the last 20 or more years he did so many horrible things that go against the interest of the Ethiopian people. Because of that he lost all the credibility and respect from the Ethiopian people, with the exception of the gullible, confused individuals and those who used him very well to serve their agenda.

In just a flip-flop, he is now back and telling us that Ethiopian history is as old as 10,000 years. Do I really have a problem with that? Not a bit. My problem is with his political, social and ethical prostitution. For a motive nobody knows now or just in an attempt to win Ethiopians respect and recognition, he is back after a long time of hibernation/hiding. How does this work for him? Well, only by flip-flopping in front of the confused, the gullible and irrationals.

So Mekedes, just to praise Prof. Ephraim, one doesn’t have to bash and trash debteras. They are different and not comparable. The denigration of debteras and the use of similar terminologies to bash and trash has its own agenda in some quarters of Ethiopians these days and I am sure that has occurred to you bay now.

In closing, here is a piece of wisdom: We must first and foremost respect what is ours (የጥበብ መጀመሪያው የራስን ማከብር ነው!!!). If we don’t, nobody does.

@mario
The colonialist name
Go and read yeabba Bahiriy Dirsetoch translated and modified by the chauvinist prof. Getachew Haile
Mekdes’s comment is right.
Have you ever heard that the human kind originates from sea fish? This was written by Bahrey, History of Galla, in C.F. Beckingham et al., some records of Ethiopia, 1593 – 1646 (Nendelin, Lichtenstein: Kraus Reprint 1967).
Can you suggest me any scientific evidence for the originality of human kind from sea fish to enforce this debtera’s history book? I don’t want to write other bad words written on this book, I reserved not to offend my Oromo brothers and sisters; though, I am not Oromo, I share the same feelings of my compatriots. Respecting each other, practicing civility in our interaction, tolerances, narrowing our differences …etc are necessary to build the united and peaceful country.
Favorably quoting Atsma Giorgis, Prof.Mesifin Woldemariam, an Ethiopian Geographer, says, “…the Galla movement like a flooding river, as nomads, destructive and purposeless force,….etc) prof. Mesfin Woldemariam, An Introductory Geography of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Berhanena Selam printing press, 1972.
Other historians wrote the movement of Oromo as “disciplined movement.”

Hi
You’re using getachew Haile–physically and mentally paralyzed ge’ezologist–and ‘Abba” Bahire–an anonymous white European Frenchman who composed fake ‘history’ by anachronism–as resources?!!!!!!!!!!Oh! They cheated the whole world for a century. Now people have disillusioned themselves. Please, throw off fakes, there wasn’t a language called Ge’eez, nowr was there Classical Greek, nor Latin, nor Sanscritt. All are faked by colonial Europe. Faranji is still fucking your ass. Habashite, be awakened. Come on towards the minds ofthe rest of the world. You are the most stupid human race, never open to learning, change and logic. May God complete his sweeping you away!!!!!

@Goliad
You said “Faranji is still fucking your ass”. I clearly understood that you are homosexual. Bushti!!
Go and practice your animalism where you trained. This is Ethiopia the land of religions; ethical nations. Your filthy big mouth and ass were damaged during your training of homosexual course. Bushti!

He rightly deserves to be listened and respected …He was there fixing things broken by “acadamician” .He was there for more than half century advising the “acadamician” of every decade to refrain from following the self-destructing wind of knowledge, THEY NEVER LISTENED TO HIM ….. IT IS OUR TIME TO LISTEN TO THIS GOOD PROF…LETS WALK WITH WISDOM. We are not homogenous but we share the same root.Period.

I’m always surprised by all the beautiful thoughts from this great father of a nation and educator of our time. I first saw him when he give a honour-guest speech in Geez at the graduation ceremony of AA university 10 years ago …

Thanks Dear Prof. this one-pager quenches my thirst for Ethiopian history than all the books and blogs I read so far …Would you share your hard-won knowledge to the next generation in book(s)?

u cannt find ethiopia in old bibles . it says the kushites not ethiopians. but others like greek people call us ethiopia an equivalent name to kush which means burnt face. so etbiopia doesnt represent the semites, since the semites comes from yemen. but the kushites didnt call themselves ethiopians but called so by other people .so we cannt say ourselves ethiopians. demo mesedadeb min ametaw yemitisedadebu sewoch ligical be hone menged mekeraker eyale.

Let me add some more comment on Ethiopia as it has not have 3000 years history. Ethiopia life strted from minilk II. It has only 100 years histry of Neftenga. First of all separate religion from politics. Still you are in the dark. What is the different between minilk time and melese time for you? You are stopping on you foo and thinking dirk like your ancient fathers minilik. It is wll known that you dirty political agenda draft from your conservative orthodox religion. One day when you see as human being you may separately see both agendas. still continue in the dark. but no tolerance at all. last warning for neftegna and asthewoch!no tolerance at all.

@mario
Stop confronting! Don’t forget this is social media; I can comment on anybody either positive or negative.
You said “Chameleon Professor” for Prof Ephraim Isaac. According to your political anatomy, any intellectuals or prominent scholars who are not opposing the ruling party is disrespectful, and should be insulted.
Can you tell me any prof. from ‘toxic Diaspora-the moron economic immigrants’ working for Ethiopian unity rather than preaching the single nation supremacy while we have more than 80+ nations and nationalities? They are the store house of ancient errors by repeating repeatedly debteras history books in 21st century. Shame on your living dead masters who are barking at a distance to destabilize and sabotage the Ethiopian development and have gone far for lobbying economic sanctions against developmental aid to Ethiopia.
If you are an Ethiopian “yeabba Bahirey dersetoch” is necessary to reprint in this contemporary world?
After all you and your living dead masters should refrain from pseudo-scientific armament of obsolete history, if you are thinking of Ethiopian unity; any anti nation bias will not help you in salivating political power.
Prof Ephraim Isaac is one of the mediators who reconciled two antagonistic parties and set free political prisoners; had it not been for this fact, we wouldn’t have seen your living dead masters living comfortable life in Washington DC.

You are doing for your paid duty as an Egyptian agent, therefore, money talks! You are not going to stop until payments are stopped, so, go on! When your propaganda is not bearing fruits, the money will stop, then you will stop! You are talking about , colonial language, while eating colonial money!

Remember: how the rural & urban Amhara is developing is witness to your to your hate argument! Woyane never focused against people , but individual haters like you! These heroes who freed Ethiopia from Hyenas in a sheep skin started their struggle bare feet haters & they won all along! Your kind of haters has been preaching all the way for the last 38 years, but they all lost! EPRP, Jebha, shabiya,Derg, EPRM,kinijit, Medrek(is disbanding now), G7/d, colored revolution, Arab spring, Muslim uprising …all failed to doom! They only thing you are gaining by preaching hate against woyane is money , nothing else!

Thank you for removing my answer to Getachew! Free self expression my ass! If you have a political power, imagine what you could do to stop people expressing themselves! You & your likes cry for free media , but you didn’t free yourself !

I have a question to all of you guys.
1. If the base of Ethiopian history is from the bible, why all the original bible in Hebrew uses Kush instead of Ethiopia. Based on the bible the word Kush is replay by Ethiopia just 1200 years ago. So does this agrees with the 3000 and 10000? You can debate on what ever bases and sources but don’t try to distort the bible.
2. The word Kush comes from bible. So are all Ethiopia are Kush? You the linguistics , word Abssniya and Habesha are from which language?